What are You Planting in YOUR Life Garden?

As most of you know, I am definitely a garden girl.  My garden is truly my happy place. It's like a huge outdoor room in my summertime, and you will usually find me wandering around out there first thing in the morning with a cup of coffee in my hand, barefoot, checking on what's grown overnight. And one of the things I love about it is that honestly, every single day feels just a little bit like Christmas. There's always something new. Maybe a flower that's opened overnight, maybe a tiny tomato blossom that wasn't there yesterday. Maybe some lettuce is finally ready to harvest. I love going out and seeing the growth and all the change, and it's like every day there's some little tiny miracle happening, and it simply brings me so much joy.

And this year, almost everything I'm growing, I actually started from seed. And a few months ago I watched this YouTube video about winter sowing perennial flowers in milk jugs. And the idea was kind of simple, and I thought this probably isn't gonna work. But you put the seeds into the soil, tape up the milk jugs, and take the lid off, and then just put them outside in like January, February. You leave them outside in the cool weather and let nature just do its thing. So I thought, I'm gonna try this and just see what happens. And honestly, I was shocked and amazed in a really good way. So for weeks I kept going out there and looking into the milk jugs, and there was like nothing happening. It seemed like, why is this a big waste of my time, or what's the point of this whole exercise? But they just sat there in the rain for months, and probably after about eight weeks I started to see these little tiny seeds popping up. And under the soil, obviously, something incredible was taking place. The seeds were absorbing the moisture and the cells were waking up, and life was preparing itself beneath the surface. And then there was more, and then more. In fact, so many of the seeds germinated that I ended up having to build another garden bed under one of my giant cedar trees because I literally ran out of room for all these beautiful little perennial flowers. And I guess that's a good problem to have.

So standing there one morning, I was looking at all the seedlings, and I had one of those moments where life just kind of hands you a lesson through something completely ordinary. And it struck me that our lives are exactly like all of those little seeds. Because everything in our life begins as a seed. Every thought is a seed, every belief is a seed, every habit and every action is also a seed. And so every choice we make is actually planting something in the garden of our life. And just like in a real garden, the things that actually grow come from the ones that we consistently nurture. And here's something fascinating about actual seeds. Scientists tell us that a seed contains everything it needs to become a mature plant. The blueprint is already in that tiny little seed. But the blueprint alone isn't enough. But when you think about it, it's kind of fascinating, and that's what's been so fun this year is me being able to put one little seed in the ground and then the plant gets a little bigger and a little bigger, and pretty soon you've got tomatoes or cucumbers or beautiful sunflowers. And it all came from this little microscopic seed. But with that blueprint that's inside the seed, it's not enough for it to just be there. It needs nurturing, it needs water, it needs to be in the right environment, it needs light and nutrients. And without those things, the potential just stays trapped inside the seed and nothing actually flourishes. And I think we as human beings are the same.

Most of us already carry the potential for the life that we want right inside us.
The confidence, the joy, the ability, the strength, the willingness, all of those things. But we forget that we need also the right environment, the right encouragement, and we need to have the right tools in place, like positive self-talk and letting go of fear and all of those things to actually move forward. And because that's true, the question actually is for all of us is...

What is it that we're planting in the garden of our life and what is it that we're feeding?
Because whatever we water will grow, whatever we fertilize will grow. And if we constantly water, fertilize, and pay attention to gratitude. Gratitude grows, confidence grows, kindness grows. And if we water our dreams through consistent action, those dreams begin to grow too. But the opposite is also true. Fear grows when we feed it, self-doubt grows when we focus on it, and negative self-talk grows when we repeat it day after day. And just like weeds in our garden, the things we don't intentionally manage can quickly take over valuable space. And here's what I've learned after years and years of gardening. The weeds, they don't actually need permission, they don't need encouragement, they don't need fertilizer, they don't need attention, they just show up. The flowers and the food and the tomatoes and the cucumbers, on the other hand, they need care. They need attention, they need fertilizer, and they need the right conditions to grow. And isn't that true with our lives as well? Negative thoughts so often seem to arrive all by themselves. And fear certainly doesn't need an invitation to show up. And worry, well, it doesn't need a reminder, it just is always there. Joy and gratitude, peace and purpose, those things require intention. We have to choose them. We have to cultivate them and we have to water them consistently.

One of the most beautiful things is that tiny actions create extraordinary results over time. Because no gardener planted a seed today and expects a full-grown tomato plant tomorrow. We understand that growth takes time when it comes to plants. Yet somehow with ourselves, we expect ourselves to transform overnight. And we get frustrated with ourselves when we're not seeing those immediate results. And I don't know about you, but it's really easy to forget sometimes that most of the important growth is happening beneath the surface where nobody can see it yet. And just because we can't see progress, it doesn't mean that progress isn't happening. Maybe you're working on building some confidence, maybe you're building a business, maybe you're healing from a traumatic experience, or learning a new skill, or maybe you're trying to rebuild your health. Whatever it is you're working on, those roots are forming even when the harvest hasn't arrived yet. So today, I want to challenge you to think about your own life garden, your mental garden, your spiritual garden, your physical garden, your relationship garden, your work garden, and your purpose garden.

Take a moment and just think about it. This struck me really deeply the other day, and I thought to myself, what do I intentionally want to plant today out in the world? Do I want to plant kindness? Do I want to plant purpose? Do I want to plant something new? So what seeds are you planting? And perhaps more importantly, what seeds are you watering and nurturing? Because the harvest you experience six months from today will largely be determined by what you're nurturing today.
So here's five ways to be more intentional about the seeds you're planting and the ones you're focusing on.
1. Choose one seed to focus on at a time.
Instead of trying to change everything at once, just pick one thing, one habit, one goal, one relationship, one mindset, and ask yourself if I just chose to water one area of my life consistently for the next 30 days, what would create the biggest positive impact? Start there. And that's the focus for this week.

2. Audit what you're feeding.
Pay attention to what gets your attention. Are you feeding gratitude or criticism? Are you feeding positivity or fear? Are you feeding your growth or are you feeding some excuses over and over? What you consume mentally becomes the fertilizer for your thoughts. So let's start to be more intentional about what we're feeding our mind.

3. Water daily, not occasionally.
Your garden doesn't thrive because you go out once a month and give it a good dose of water. It thrives because it's cared for consistently, and the same is true for your life. Small daily actions will always outperform occasional bursts of motivation. And I can tell you for sure that five minutes consistently every day of some positive action will be one hour of motivation once in a while. Because consistency is the water that helps whatever seed you're trying to grow grow faster.

4. Pull the weeds early. (This one is one of my favorites.)
Don't let negative thoughts take root, or don't let bad habits take root. When you catch yourself saying things like, I'm not good enough, or I'll never figure this out, or it's too late to start something new, pause and change that thought. Challenge it and replace it with something more empowering. Because small weeds are so much easier to remove than the deeply rooted ones.

5. Trust the process.
Not every seed grows at the same speed. Some flowers bloom really quickly, and others take months to germinate. Some perennials even take years before they truly become their most magnificent. And your life is no different. So this week I want to challenge you to keep showing up. To trust that what you need to have happen in your life is working beneath the surface.

So keep watering and keep the faith that growth is happening even when you can't see it. And actually, you know, that also comes back to another point. I had some peas that I put out in the garden this year. And I put a lot of things in the garden, but I particularly planted the peas nice and early because they're supposedly really prefer to be germinated in a cooler temperature. And I waited and I waited and I waited. And nothing happened. And I thought, I don't know if the temperature was too cold or maybe some birds got the seed. I don't know, but I had no growth at all.

​And so just like our lives, sometimes we do something that doesn't work out the way we hope it will. And you know what I did? I planted again. And it's the same with our life. Sometimes our first try doesn't actually fly. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep planting.  :)